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9.26.2013

love is devotion

when my guru officially accepted me as his student and gave me my spiritual name, one of the things he said was that I like to hear - that we met because I would come to his classes and would hear from him. I've never really thought that sravanam (hearing) was my thing. I've always found sitting in classes uncomfortable - both physically and mentally. my body hurts; my brain wanders (endlessly!). I fidget a lot and think about a millionzillion different things - but not so much about whatever the speaker is saying!

pause that thought.

I've always had a hard time with sleep - intermittent insomnia as a mix of waking up in the middle of the night and/or not sleeping soundly and laying in bed for extended periods of time without being able to fall asleep. ever since gita was born the falling asleep part has gotten worse because she sleeps in my bed and I can't watch tv to fall asleep. I know, I know - that's not the best consciousness to fall asleep with - but it's kind of how I learned to fall asleep as a kid, so it's very natural for me. about a year or so ago, my inability to fall asleep (relatively) quickly began to get significantly worse and it was really torturous for me. bottom line: I could not shut my dang brain off! my thoughts would run a-muck the minute I laid down to try to sleep. I thought to myself one night, well, if I'm going to lay here, I might as well do something productive... so I started listening to podcasts of my guru's classes. my mind started to do two things: listen and shut down.

side note: I know - this sounds kind of weird. like, um, I used my guru's classes to fall asleep... but seriously, that wasn't my intention or kind of how it worked...so hold that thought, k?

anywho - I did this for quite a while. I would start a class, get maybe twenty minutes into it and start to drift off. then the next night I would skip twenty-minutes into the class, find the place I remembered last, and then continue on. granted, it would sometimes take me an entire week to get through one class... but it was working. unfortunately, I had to stop doing this because I also use my phone as my alarm clock... and I can't fall asleep without that app running. so I can't do my night time listening anymore...

but hold up, pause that thought too...

the thing that's funny about the guru-disciple relationship is that it doesn't haven't to be physically proximal. I don't actually get to see my guru very often, even when he is in america... even when he's only an hour or so away. he's busy. I'm busy. life is busy. I see him and hear from him in person when I can - and it is super awesome. but this is what I'm learning - is that even when I hear from him via delayed podcast, it has a profound affect on our relationship. I feel closer to him.

ok, rewind a little bit...

so now I can't do my evening listening and I'm feeling so much distance between myself and my guru. and I've noticed I'm craving... craving hearing from him.

oh, wait. pause that.

I used to listen to the radio a lot in the car. sometimes because I was into the songs and sometimes because I just needed background noise. over the summer I noticed that I couldn't listen to it anymore. it made me anxious and annoyed. I would just drive with silence. I wasn't in the mood to hear anything. like, I would think, hmm, I should put on some kirtan at least... but yea, I just wasn't in the mood. so it would just be quiet and silent... oh, well, except my mind going kraykray, of course. so that's how I went on for quite some time... until...

ok, back to what I was saying before... until I started craving hearing from my guru. and then I started to listen to classes while I was driving... and now I can't stop.

and you're like, um, so? I know. this doesn't sound very earth shattering or ground breaking. it's actually kind of like, duh. but remember what I said before... I'm not so much of a hearing-sravanam kind of girl. at least I didn't think I was. maybe I'm becoming one?

who knows... but all of that was leading up to me telling you this one thing I heard during a class that was given about Sri Radhe. and I thought this point was so beautiful...
my guru was saying how love means giving pleasure to the beloved. like Radharani's whole goal was to just please Krishna. that's all. there's nothing selfish in it. if Radharani was dressing beautifully, she was dressing beautifully to make Krishna happy - because she loved him and wanted to make him happy - (and here's the mind blowing part) notbecause she wanted him to love her back. it's not about getting someone to love us! that's not love! bhakti means loving without expectation. love is devotion and devotion is love - but only when it's for the beloved's (ultimately Krishna's) pleasure.

that was all I was originally going to say about that... but then I saw this amazing blog post and it made me think about my husband. and I was thinking how this principal of loving for the sake of the beloved's pleasure could also apply to him. how when I do things for him it should be about him, not me. isn't it crazy how selfish we are as people? how everything revolves around our desire to be the center of everything?! holy cow. I could go on and on! - and not in a way like I'm somehow immune, but because I so much see this in myself. so much of what I do is so other people will love me, or validate me, or just make me feel importantcoolspecialwhateverfillinyourownadjectivehere.

anywho. go read that blog post. it's so good. I have to stop myself from rambling, because seriously, I could go on forever.
carry on.